Chapter 12 - Blood and Patents
""Julian didn't run,"" Heinrich muttered, his eyes darting to the weapons locker behind the tool wall. ""He went to his real backers.""
Marcus looked at the screens, his eyes turning cold and dangerous. ""Julian never had the intelligence to design that engine himself. He stole Thomas’s original blueprints from our family archive ten years ago. When Thomas vanished, Julian claimed the patents as his own. That's how Apex Motoring was funded.""
""And now Julian knows the boy is Thomas's son,"" Heinrich added, loading a high-powered sporting rifle with practiced efficiency. ""If the boy lives, the patents revert to Thomas’s rightful heir. Julian loses the entire company, his defense contracts, and his freedom.""
""They're not here to talk,"" Leo said, his voice eerily calm. He looked down at the disassembled engine on the stand. ""They want the boy dead, and they want the prototype destroyed so no one can prove the design flaws match Thomas's original stolen notes.""
The bunker's hydraulic blast doors groaned as heavy breaching charges were affixed to the outer hinges. The camera feeds flickered with interference.
""Heinrich, get the boy to the service tunnel,"" Marcus commanded, drawing his pistol once more. ""The tunnel leads to the old ventilation shaft three miles south.""
""I'm not running,"" Leo said.
""Leo, this isn't a fistfight in an alley!"" Marcus snapped, grabbing the boy's shoulder. ""These are mercenaries. They have automatic weapons!""
""And you have twenty thousand gallons of unrefined aviation fuel stored in the subterranean reserves beneath bay three,"" Leo countered, pointing to the industrial plumbing diagrams painted on the bunker wall. ""My dad designed this facility with your father fifty years ago, didn't he? He showed me the schematics on the back of brown paper grocery bags every night before bed.""
Marcus stared at the boy in utter disbelief. ""You memorized the blueprints of this bunker?""
""I know every vent, every pressure valve, and every fuel bypass line,"" Leo said, pulling a heavy pipe wrench from Heinrich’s bench. ""You want to protect my father’s legacy? Stop acting like a CEO and start acting like a mechanic. Help me turn this bunker into a furnace.""
A massive explosion blew the outer hinges off the main blast doors. Smoke, concrete dust, and the sharp stink of C4 explosive flooded into the pristine marble showroom.
May you like
Laser sights cut through the smoke. Julian Sterling walked through the breach, flanked by six private security contractors armed with suppressed carbines. Julian was no longer wearing his ruined suit; he wore a tactical vest, his face twisted in desperate, murderous ambition.
""Search the floor!"" Julian barked. ""Leave no one alive! Especially the boy!""
